Sonic Mania (Switch, PS4, Xbox One, PC...Netflix?)

Collecting them could knock you down a speed level, I presume? So grabbing one or a few by mistake wouldn't have been a game ender, but collect too many and it probably becomes easier for the UFO to catch back up to you (or lose the UFO, presuming they'd also be laid out on the track design). The second concept art piece kinda looks like the UFO is shooting them from behind in a setup that kinda looks like those boulder chase levels from the Crash titles/the Interceptor sections in the PS2/Wii versions of Sonic Unleashed.

It's neat, but I can easily see why they did away with the idea. The Special Stages in the series have never really had a secondary objective like it and it's just a lot of extra work after the player already fought for the Emerald. That and it seems obnoxious if they were planning on keeping the camera facing the player's front? A lot of hazards on the tracks might have been difficult to telegraph unless the course design was intended to be mostly flat at one point.

Respectfully, I don't see the similarities other than 'hazard that homes in on the player'. Completely different 3D enviornment and it's based on a timer rather than progressing to the next area/intentionally dropping the key.

 

Another unreleased track by Tee. I love this take here.
Pulp Friction sounds like a even earlier name for Press Garden
Pulp Fiction > Pulp Solstice > Press Garden zone.


https://x.com/TeeLopes/status/1824198173763703172

 

Sounds very Southeast Asian...

...wait a damn minute.

 

This totally sounds something would fit into Freedom Planet (either 1 or 2).

 

Wait a minute… Act 2 continues this Asian motif, so did they just scrap the original version of Act 1 but keep the 2nd intact!?

If so, that’s just really interesting to me.

 

Pulp Friction to me makes sense only as an earlier version of the zone that became Press Garden Zone; perhaps it was before the Printing Press elements known in the final Press Garden were added…

 

Seeing how "Pulp Friction" sounds like a pun on pulp fiction, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the printing press theme must already have been there at that point.

 

Eh, I wouldn't get too caught up on the name. It could've been a placeholder for all we know.

Or maybe we're all wrong and the zone was supposed to be a diner with booths shaped like car trunks, with the boss fight being set in a basement where Eggman wears a gimp suit while pointing a shotgun at Sonic.

 

The true answer lies somewhere in the middle, using concept art and development tidbits. Press Garden Act 1 is the most iterated-upon level in Mania, which is clear when you look at its concept art. Most level's concept art is very similar to the final, except for Press Garden Act 1, which has a lot more differences. It still had a focus on printing, but it was a lot more industrial and less natural. Act 2's concept art, in this same style, is virtually identical to what's seen in the final.

Spoiler

There's also the leaked image of the level that looks near-final, but with a different color palette:

Spoiler

Here is what Taxman had to say about it, about 3 years apart:








There are quite a few leftovers of this in the game. The "steel with orange accents" palette was retained in the woodchipper object, and Act 1 has some unused gear tiles that are cleaned-up versions of the ones seen in Act 2. Also has some unused paper tiles, who knows what these would've been used for.



There's also a large stretch of tiles with completely inappropriate collision, corroborating the idea of removed slope/curve tiles.



One of these days I really need to do a complete once-over of the game and all of its unused content and concepts, lots of interesting stuff...

 

Yeah, that looks a lot more press and way less garden. Are we sure that PGZ wasn't originally meant to be two, separate zones? Acts 1 and 2 have very little in common even in the final game.

Wasn't the game's original premise about a civil war between Eggman and the Hard Boiled Heavies, with Eggman controlling all the revisited zones and the Heavies controlling all the new ones? That would mean that each of the five Heavies was supposed to have an original zone of their own, yet the final game has only four + Egg Reverie. Heavy Rider sticks out like a sore thumb in Lava Reef.

 

I'm surprised this wasn't posted here but a while ago it was revealed that Hidden Palace was originally planned for Mania - not the S2 version, but a new take on the level similar to the Sand Shower -> Mirage Saloon pipeline. There are some leftovers of S2 HPZ in the game, such as sprites and functional objects, but there's nothing else.

Here is the demo track, which you will probably recognize:

https://x.com/TeeLopes/status/1804973357865066643/video/1

Scrap Brain Zone was also considered, featuring unused objects (Bomb, Caterkiller, and Orbinaut), spritesheets, and even its own check in the code:

 

Lagoon City has giant fruit, and fruit have pulp...

I'm kidding, of course, but Press Garden still raises a shit ton of questions.

 

We can align the first four heavies to a new zone for sure.

Heavy Gunner - Studiopolis
Heavy Shinobi - Press Garden
Heavy Magician - Mirage Saloon
Heavy Rider - Hidden Palace (Mania’s cut version)

Heavy King at first seems like an outlier, but perhaps he was meant to be fought at the end of Titanic Monarch Act 2? We do know that there is a section of TMZ2 unused in regular gameplay in the final game, so perhaps the Heavy King was meant to be there at first, and then being followed up by the Phantom Egg…

 

I always assumed Mania was meant to have 5 original zones instead of 4, but due to time/budget constraints they had to come down to four and Metallic Madness was added as a compensation (that's why Chemical Plant 2 has the MMZ's pipe gimmick, since it was not originally planned to be included in the game)

 

Even if you don't fight him there in the game, Titanic Monarch is still very clearly the Heavy King's zone. Not only does it have castle-like elements such as banners and stained glass, the whole zone is literally just a giant version of him.


Much like you would expect from a zone named "Titanic Monarch".

 

Regarding the UFO thing, I think it would have made a nice twist for the 7th Emerald. I always felt that one seemed a bit *too* easy compared to the ones before it, I don't think I've ever needed to reach Mach 3 to get the emerald there.

 

The Encore Mode Special Stage however...

 

Something for 10th anniversary could happen!! I'm not sure what exactly but it is one of the major games of the entire history of Sonic!! it wouldn't require much to be special; that is, it would not have to be like a Director's Cut; the original patch and Plus seemed to provide that without changing the interesting and timeless results they arrived at together. but there is the potential to do something that would really work, to continue the essences of Sonic Mania within the original game framework itself.

 

I don't think I'll ever be ready for the 10th anniversary of Mania, it still feels so recent in my mind even though a lot has happened since it released

 

The most SEGA thing that SEGA will do for the 10th Anniversary will be either one of the following two choices:

A) A simple post on their social media acknowledging the 10th anniversary

B) A re-release of Sonic Origins Plus for next generation consoles and PC with more polish and also includes Mania Plus as a bonus game